Ancient and strange

Belfast: The conclusion to my foray at the Ulster Historical Society left me with few pounds. It's typical of me to spend money on books rather than essentials... like food. I have no more pounds to access, only Euros, and for that I have to be in Ireland, not Northern Ireland. What can a person do with fifteen pounds and a day and half? Well, I bought my three pound breakfast, then wandered off to the Queen's University.

Lovely old buildings, I managed to tag along with a group of Americans who'd turned up in a tour bus. Everything is so manicured, but the architecture is wonderful. I could easily imagine Dr Indiana Jones, sneaking out, or Harry Potter up in one of the rooms, staring forlornly out over the lawns... Of course, I have a lot more photos of the buildings and of the stained glass window inside.

Then I went to the botanic gardens. While most of flowers are yet to bloom or have passed their most beautiful, I took some photographs of some gorgeous emerging roses with names like Shot Silk, John Snow and Glendfiddich. I'm not really a flower person. I am, in fact, botanically-challenged, and can rarely remember the names of plants, but how can you forget a rose named after a rather tasty scotch?

Is this Glenfiddich Rose a fabulous colour or what?

The one thing I like about botanic gardens is that they are so relaxing. You can wander around, looking at the colour, admiring the bloom forms, or the foliage if there are no flowers. The only down side was that the Palm House was closed. It was built by the same guy who did Crystal Palace and is a miniature.

While wandering back to one of the gates, I noticed a shrub in a cage. Yes, a green-painted steel, double locked, fine-meshed, cage. On closer inspection, I knew what it was: the Woolamai Pine, currently the most exotic and oldest pine in the world. A gift, no doubt, from the Australian Government. Its discovery location is still a secret and there aren't many of them. This pine was around with the dinosaurs!

After taking a photo, I had the joy of stepping in squirrel poop. The offender chitted at me and bounded further away as if he'd said too much.

Of course, I could be wrong and the pine might be a recidivist escapee, now locked up. I did wonder if it would be released. These pines are highly sought after given their antiquity. Dinosaurs maybe snacked on these. It reminds me of the Huon Pine which can grow huge, slowly ages and a specimen can be over a thousand years old. Oh, and the wood? Smooth and silky. Ships were built out of them because there weren't any bugs around to chew on it.

Back on the street, I made my way down to City Hall and the spring carnival. Here, stalls were set up like a market around the Hall - which was closed for renovations. After having some well-deserved coffee, I walked around, checked what was there. For lunch, I had a traditional Hog on a Bap (bread roll) with softened apple sauce. Can you say yum? And that gave me an idea. I now had seven pounds left. I went to the Baker's stall and bought four potato farls (rolls), then to the cheesemonger for some smoked Dutch cheddar. I also purloined some sachets of sugar from one of the coffee stands and I still feel guilty about that.

On my way back to the hostel, I stopped in at Tesco's for milk, and yes, more sugar for my coffee. As an act of penance, I shall leave the sugar as a donation to the group basket for the hostel.

Okay, that is dinner done... except... I went to the off-licence across the road and spent a pleasant half hour talking to the owner about family history before purchasing a can of Guinness.

So, here I am, in the dining room with a nice cup of coffee. Mary Jane, one of my room buddies from the last two days had a suggestion for my accommodation problem on Wednesday: she suggested staying the night at the airport. The idea has merit. Why pay €87 for a room I'll only use for maybe twelve hours? I can cat nap until the flight leaves at 6.30. I'll be tired when I hit Paris, but hopefully that means I'll sleep most of the way to Kuala Lumpur.

Sometimes, you see the strangest things. I'm filling in a few gaps in the family tree database and there's a knock on the clear-glass fire door. Okay, I let the guys in. It's not until I'm sitting down again, with my glasses on that I realise the second man is wearing shorts, is mostly bare-chested, and is wearing a mankini. Pink. Over his shorts. As a statement, it's out there. Shame I left the camera upstairs.

I've also just found 20 Euro in my document folder... and no time to change it to pounds. Sigh